Article Writing and AI

[Art K Stables]

Interesting idea Jon,
But I think it opens several cans of worms probably not worth getting into. Imagine someone having to monitor everything, accusing people of it, but proving it might be another matter. There's no definitive way to prove it, not worth the headache. 98% of the articles aren't relevant to me, several regurgitate info easily found by just reading stats in the game with zero insight. I find them easily not worth the headache.. there are forums to post thoughts to, if there is an interest.

[Jon Xett]

Honor system? SIM folks are honest, aren’t they. I’d like to think that the Humans of SIM are an honorable group capable of posting AI articles, pictures and the like to the correct AI Forum buckets. Perhaps.

[Vicki Johnson]

Craig... I will need to borrow your manure fork please...but since I am a slow learner will need you to demonstrate to me how to use it correctly for a few hours.......just to be on the safe side....thank you for your generous offer! Always so kind and thoughtful!

[Vicki Johnson]

Mr Art K Stables - that brings up a good point, I had unfortunately written something that I had not posted yet about SIM articles and the great players. Why doesn't the experienced players of the game write articles so others can grow? That would be helpful to me and i bet many others would appreciate it.

[Xander Zone]

Okay so here is my idea ,
Like in real life there is an award for the best article /story why not make this a sim feature that the best article or series of them wins a Simmy (would be great for new players to be able to read back on them ) and give a cash prize of what ever 500k etc and make it something that is voted on in a poll fashion etc

[John Smith]

Ai is conundrum, much like every technological advance, because people CAN'T be trusted. AI isn't seen as a threat in countries where housing, medical care and income is somewhat guaranteed.

Vets reach out to early simsters that raise concerns in these articles, at least they did when I was writing. It was a good system for its' intended purposes of helping new players ensure some cash flow.

Keep it simple, people will help as they see fit or able. At least that has been my experience here thus far.

[Eric Nalbone]

If AI is used correctly, it's a remarkably detailed process to actually get output at a high level, that's factual, error free, and cogent. It's a different kind of effort to create a high-quality bit of AI-generated content, but it's still work that requires knowledge of your topic and intended output. I don't mind authors or artists using AI as part of their process, but AI can no more produce fantastic work without direction than a saw and a stack of lumber can create kitchen cabinets for you without the skill to use the material and tools properly.

My dream for The Feature Race is probably an overengineered solution to this problem (it's basically Reddit's karma system), but I'd implement a player-based rating system at the author level. Anyone can rate an article positively or negatively. If you have a positive or negative reputation between +10 and -10, you are a Bronze writer and can submit two articles per week, paid at half the rate of a gold writer's article. If you have a positive reputation above 11, you are a silver writer and can submit 3 per week, paid at 75% of the rate of a gold writer's article. A positive reputation above 20, you can submit 4 paid at the full rate. If your reputation drops below -10, you are an unrated writer and clearly people do not want or appreciate the content that you're producing - your frequency of submissions drops to 1/wk and is unpaid until your reputation is again above -10. We'd need to see how frequently people interact with the rating system per article to make sure those bands worked out, but the basic framework would remain the same regardless of where you draw the line.

The above creates an incentive for creation of content that people appreciate and enjoy - I'd happily upvote someone who does a thoughtful preview of a race my horse was in, a nice profile of a stallion, creative 'fanfic', etc. It also takes away the necessity of an editor making an inherently subjective decision on article quality. If we all just say 'Eric's writing is crap' and downvote it, then either I change what I'm writing or I don't get the right to submit more content. It also means that people earn their way into the contributor pool gradually, producing quality content over an extended period of time (you'd start out being able to submit two articles, and and ideally it would take you ~2 weeks to work our way to silver, and another 2 weeks to gold, indicating you're producing quality content over time (I'm thinking you'd get like ... 2-4 ratings per article, depending on subject matter ... but if you write God's Gift to the Feature Race and get 30 upvotes in one article, more power to you).

I think most of the SIM is capable enough of recognizing an earnest effort, even if the writer is young or English isn't their first language (these patterns are pretty easy to spot), so I don't think we'd collectively punish that so much as low-quality fluff devoid of thought (I don't need you to list the 20 horses in the derby and their sires, I can just go click on the Derby horses and see their sires ... that adds nothing).

[Evelyne Cergerac]

My vote is to just put a note in bold red text that AI generated text will not be accepted and the feature race editor has absolutely final decision. Allow resubmission of articles rewritten/edited to have appropriate flow and context.

Honestly, this seems to be the best solution so far!

[Sue Wentz]

My vote is to just put a note in bold red text that AI generated text will not be accepted and the feature race editor has absolutely final decision. Allow resubmission of articles rewritten/edited to have appropriate flow and context.

Honestly, this seems to be the best solution so far!

This actually makes a lot of sense, and would get things up and running a lot faster. If it continues to be a problem, it could always be revisited.

[Ken Lind]

Good Lord. Enough of this bloviating over nothing.
Just don't pay for "articles". 90% of them are just money grabs with no useful purpose.

[Vicki Johnson]

bah humbug!

[Lily Wilkins]

Good Lord. Enough of this bloviating over nothing.
Just don't pay for "articles". 90% of them are just money grabs with no useful purpose.

Some people are new to the game and don't have $61,580,309 in their bank accounts, and that $80,000 a week from writing articles is their lifeblood. You are under no obligation to read them, but payment in exchange for articles shouldn't be taken away.

[Hazel Anthony]

I used to work in marketing and I remember when AI first started becoming popular. I still think AI writing is relatively easy to spot. If the Sim was able to screen for it using software, or by someone (a volunteer or two) who knows how AI writes, we could just label those articles as "Potentially Including AI Content" or something like that, as another player suggested earlier. Trying to ban AI content completely would be hard; people would still try to find loopholes, not to mention it would be more work to screen even harder to decide an article is worthy of not being published or removed.

As someone who remembers writing articles to get money as a newbie, I actually agree with the players saying articles shouldn't be paid. Or at least as much money as they offer now. I know I didn't write helpful articles because I didn't know enough about the game, and any other newbie will be the same. That doesn't mean they should be banned from writing, but if there isn't a financial incentive to write, a lot of them would probably wait to write until they knew more about the Sim. I also think taking away a large financial incentive would help screen the AI spammers. They are more than likely only doing it for the money; not just for fun.
I know it's not really possible, but I wish there was some other way newbies could do something to earn money. I completely understand that they need and rely on the article money (I did too), but in the end a flood of newbie articles isn't really helping anyone. A few here and there to have a newbie perspective would be great, of course. I still don't know enough about the game to really make suggestions, but maybe Trial Park could be expanded or the purses raised or something? If writing articles wasn't the main source of income for newbies it would certainly help the current problem of AI content and too many incorrect articles.

I also agree with the suggestion that Simmy awards could be given for the most useful and well-written articles. It would encourage players to do their research and write quality content to earn an award.

[Rochelle Bos]

The great thing about writing the articles though is the research that goes into them, I feel like it’s a great way to learn parts of learning the game. For a new player the money is a great incentive that encourages it

[Vicki Johnson]

This is the last comment i make about the subject but remember it is not just new people writing the articles. People who have been in the game longer than me write articles.